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eleventh installment

The lorry turned into what seemed like barracks and everyone got out, it seemed that they were all heading for the canteen so I followed.Inside it was full, I saw Alan and a few of the others, after getting some food I went and sat down with them. They asked me where I had been they told me that we were to have three days off and everyone who had somewhere in Osijek go, Alan and I were two that didn't, they brought new clothes and boots and put them in the middle of the room, I went and took what I needed and returned to Alan who had already taken what he needed. Someone told us where we could sleep, so off we went to find our well needed beds but before I could sleep I needed to take a shower which I hoped would warm me up, it would definitely make me feel better, I finished and went back to the room where I found Alan already asleep dressed in the same clothes that he had left Laslovo in, he must have been totally exhausted as was I but I had had a shower and put some clean clothes on before I could lay down on the mattress and pull the blankets over my head in order to sleep hoping to feel safe. There was no way really that I would be able to sleep for what was left of the night, I kept going over what had happened since the same time yesterday, the shelling, the bullets and the dead I especially thought about Eric and weather he was alive or dead, I thought about Laslovo which had been my home now being used by the scum of the earth, chetniks. If we had left a couple of days earlier then everyone would still be alive, everyone who defended Laslovo had done their job better than could have been expected although they had fought with their hearts not their brains, they had fought because it was their duty to keep their home village Laslovo free, it was now in the grip of communism, would we be able to take it back somehow I doubted it. How long would it be before they reached Osijek itself, how long before the inhabitants of this city would have to defend it like the people of Laslovo had done, how long could Croatia last as a free country, only time would tell. That night one of the men who spoke english told me that during the time that they had defended Laslovo about sixteen soldiers and eleven civilians had died if that was the actual figure, maybe more we wouldn't know until Laslovo was once again a part of Croatia when that would be no one could even hazard a guess. There had been two groups which had evacuated Laslovo, one had about eighty people and had left an hour before we did, I had been in the main group of about one hundred and ninety, these were the only soldiers and civilians to leave Laslovo alive. 

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Seventh installment, sorry it's a bit late but its hard to write what I wrote and remember.

The next day it was awfully quiet, the calm before the storm perhaps, nothing much for breakfast so we decided to try and lay the land line. So off we went house to house laying the wire behind us and then the mortars started again so we hit the ground, lying down was the safest if caught outside, there were pieces of shrapnel hitting the wall near to us and it was not a very safe place to be so we decided to make a run for it, that was the quickest I had ran in a long time, it is amazing how fast your legs move when you're life is at risk, "that was a nice little bit of exercise" Eric said laughing, "yes but it would have been better if we weren't dodging pieces of metal" I replied also laughing.  Everyone was there apart from those on guard duty and during the night it had changed from two to three, so I sat down on the bar stool and Eric went behind the counter looking for something to eat and all of a sudden bang and I fell off the stool, they all came t...
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Ninth installment

The remains of the unit that were in this position left and we followed them, we went around the outskirts of the village and back into the center. The rest of PIV or what was left of it were already there, we found out that Colin just after he had reached the main hq in the center of the village. We had to go back to the end of the street to see what was happening but as soon as we arrived we came under heavy fire as the enemy had pinpointed this house as our new front line, there was no way that we could reach Eric without getting everyone who attempted a rescue killed and because of the amount of enemy fire we had to fall back, on the way Alan started going berserk saying that he had to go back to fight, he was shooting everywhere so George calmed him down and asked him to take care of the elderly and that seemed to work. By now the village command had decided it was time to leave but first we had to wait for the mortar unit to reach safety. We could not get anywhere near under cons...
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Third installment

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